Byzantine Religious Culture
Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot
Edited by Denis Sullivan Elizabeth Fisher Stratis Papaioannou
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52 MICHEL KAPLAN
Parmentier, L et F. Scheidweiler, édd., 199B. Théodoret de Cyr, Histoire ecclésiasti- que rééd. révisée H. C. Hahsen, Theodoretos Kirchengeschichte, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten lahrhunderte. Neue Folge 5. Berlin. Preger, T. éd. 1901-07. Scriptores originum Constantinopolitarum. 2 vols. Leipzig. LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM Vitæ et passiones martyrum et sanctorum ex Eclogariis. 1874. Venise. AND THE SURVIVING RECORD
Etudet Maria Mavroudi Brock, S. 1979.
about learned women in antiquity as a contemplation by the Byzantines attitude towards Aspasia is also registered at the beginning of the flf- (whether men or women) on equivalent roles potentially played by teenth century, though in a different way: in an address to emperor Byzantine women in their contemporary societies? A brief answer Manuel II, Manuel Chrysoloras called the emperor's mother, Helena to this large question is possible by looking at the associations three Kantakouzene, a new Aspasia, in an attempt to pay her the ultimate Byzantine writers evoke when mentioning Aspasia, one of the most compliment on account of her erudition.s famous female figures of Greek antiquity. The ancient sources read by An elaborate negative portrayal of Aspasia is given in the twelfth the Byzantines offer a range of positive as well as negative evaluations century:e lohnTzetzes (Chiliades 360,943-6I) presents her as the cause for Aspasia ranging between a prostitute and a respectable woman;3 of the Peloponnesian war, an allegation traceable to Aristophanesl0 this is also reflected in Aspasia's mention by Byzantine authors, who and repeated in a number of ancient and Byzantine sourceslt though chose depending on whether they wanted to convey a positive or nega- absent from Thucydides, whose textTzetzes had read and commented tive example of womanhood as it applied to the point they wished to on:r2 Pericles excluded the Megarians from all markets and ports con- make regarding their own society. In the tenth century, Euthymios trolled by Athens by claiming they had destroyed a sacred meadow Protasecretis wrote an encomiurø on St. Mary the Egyptian praising (ópyúç), whereas the real reason was that they had insulted his wedded her asceticism in which he compared her with a number of virtuous wife, Aspasia, whom they had formerly known as a prostitute in their men and women from antiquity. The female examples include not cíly.Tzetzes'punch line is that, while lying, Pericles was also telling the only Aspasia, but also Antigone, Pheretima, Phemonoe, Pantheia, truth, because both the real and the fabricated cause of the Megarian Thargelia, and Theano the Pythagorean. The modern editor of the text, exclusion was an ôpyáç, a word which Tzetzes stretches to convey a F. Halkin, registered surprise at this seemingly incongruous catalogue,a double entendre: Pericles' ópyàç was not a sacred meadow but Aspasia, but Euthymios' choices become perfectly intelligible when we realize a crazed devotee (rendered by Tzetzes irregularly also as ôpyúç)t3 not that he identifled these figures as philosophers following a definition of of Athena (therefore no learned woman) but of Aphrodite (that is, philosophy current in a number of ninth to eleventh century texts such a mere prostitute). In this word play Tzetzes exploits a well-known as the Suda and the Lexicon of Zonaras as "moral perfection based on the true gnosis of Being."5 In a world that had known Christian revelation, such a definition can only lead to the identiflcation of phi- õó['qç rápep1a; "H yuvcrrrôv 6oor nepíðo(or ôr' opetì¡v aveypá9r1ocrv, Avtrlóv¡ losophy 9q¡Lì with Christianity and of a monk or nun with a philosopher;6 rcrì Õepetípcr rcrì @r1¡rovór1 rcì lltív0era, Oap1r1Àía te rcrì Aonüoícr roì r1 to0aloprrì¡ accordingly, Euthymios compared the ascetic Marywith non-Christian Oeavó; AÀÀà tí ôeî pryvúerv tà d,prrta; Tíç 1òp rorvrovícr 56 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 57 metaphor of ancient and medieval literature, the woman as a garden,ra Venetian born Christine de Pisan (1365-c. 1431) managed to do at with connotations of both sexual purity and lewdness, also analyzed the courts of France?20 Christine is the only female from the Middle by Eustathios of Thessaloniki at around the same time.rs Tzetzes is Ages, East or \Mest, known to have supported herself and her children repeatedly sarcastic towards women renowned for their erudition. In through her activities as a professional woman of letters. She turned to the introduction to his commentary on the Odyssey, he also attacked writing after being widowed at a young age and, in doing so, followed Demo, an author of unknown date that modern scholars tend to place the profession she had watched her father and husband exercise while around the flfth or sixth century; the surviving fragments of her work she was under their care;2r it may have been the only thing she knew indicate that she drew from astronomy and astrology in order to offer how to do to earn a living. The key to her success during her lifetime - rationalized allegorical interpretations of myths and deities following a and the preservation of her work and reputation in posterity-is that traditional method of Homeric interpretation.l6 She is quoted a num- she catered to aristocratic patrons (including women) with important ber of times in the Byzantine scholia to Homer, also by Eustathios of political agendas; she presented them with luxurious manuscripts of Thessaloniki.Tzetzes mocked her name with a pun (Demo = Mimo = her work, some of which survive. Tzetzes'woman schedographer may monkey) and dismissed her as too high-minded, which in the imme- have been pushed to writing under similar circumstances but seems to diately preceding line he contrasts (not without self-satisfaction) with have followed a diametrically opposed business model, which may be his own simplicity and clarity. The literary pursuits of women, not the reason why we do not hear about her again. Such a hypothesis is, of only those of the remote past, but also of the living present, seem course, impossible to substantiate; yet the invective is an exhibition of to have bothered him: in a brief verse invective against an unnamed Tzetzes' own grammatical prowess and control of stylistic techniques woman who wrote schedographies (a kind of grammatical exercise),l7 that may respond to a perceived threat to his own status as a perenni- he admonished her that spinning and weaving is a more appropriate ally poor professional man of letters. One wonders whether it was also female occupation.Is Could this be a woman trying to support herself triggered by his testy relations with at least two female patrons of his as a paid professional ofletters (especially since she turned to a literary literary activity, empress Eirene (born Bertha von Sulzbach), first wife product included in school textbooks of the twelfth century, therefore of Manuel I and sebastokratorissa Eirene, wife of Andronikos, older potentially lucrative through its use in beginning education),te like the brother of Manuel I.22 Professional men of letters like him were cater- ing to a remarkably numerous group of female patrons known to be active during the Komnenian period. The extent of this social phenom- statistic: 'a On this metaphor, see Dolezal and Mavroudi (2002) 139. enon is possible to gauge through the following among sixty- 15 Stallbaum (182511970) l: 265.39: yuvaîrcr yáp trç ¡rcrvrórc¡nov elne, d¡v ¡-re¡Lr'¡vuîav four poems from three twelfth-century collections of verse naming repì pí(erç. rfrnov ðreîvoç {rro0é¡Levoç eîvor, tò nupù Ârró 58 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 59 aristocratic women must harre developed definite literary tastes and and medicine-all of which we recognize as "secular" pursuits.26 By may have even tried their own hand at composition. Tzetzes' female comparison, learned women of the middle and late Byzantine period schedographer may have been not an aspiring professional like him, seem to have expended their intellectual energies in "religious" pur- but a dilettante, which can be even worse: a rich lady playing literary suits: hymnography, hagiography, copying of religious manuscripts, games with her other rich lady friends addresses (at least partially) their epistolography (mostly, though not exclusively, exchanged with men need for this kind of intellectual fare and curtails the niche that a pro- of the church on religious topics). How justified is this impression? fessional like Tzetzes is trying to carve for himself as she over-saturates The Byzantine archeological record lacks a particular kind of source the market by making even more products available for free. Tzetzes that modern scholars have used productively in order to retrieve infor- has a positive opinion about a single literary woman: empress Eudocia, mation on women in the ancient world, including professionals and of whose work he admits he knows little. What he emphasizes instead women of letters: inscriptions, the habit and taste for which drasti- is her long apprentice under the grammarians Hyperechios, Orion, cally diminished and all but disappeared after the end of antiquity.2T and other rhetoricians and philosophers-male professionals like him- Yet Byzantinists can make up for it with existing manuscripts known self to whom she paid due respect, we are to understand; he sharply, through notes on their pages to have been copied or owned by women.28 vehemently, and at length, contrasts this with his own, unnamed con- The earliest modern publication on female scribes in the Greek lan- temporaries, who know nothing about literary composition but pour guage is a 1903 study by Spyridon Lampros, evidently borne out of a excrement on the one who tries to help them out of their ignorance.2a life-long occupation with Greek manuscripts.2e He enumerated thirty- It is impossible to miss that he is using an example from the remote one women scribes and manuscript owners active between the fourth past in order to criticize his own wretched times. and the seventeenth centuries, in their majority undistinguished and If we grant, as the above examples suggest that we do, that Byzantine otherwise unknown to the historic record, mostly on the basis of discussions and comments on learned women in antiquity reflect notes on existing manuscripts, but also consulting narrative sources. Byzantine attitudes towards Byzantine learned women, and there- Understandably, as the manuscripts become more recent, therefore fore the record on ancient women's intellectual pursuits preserved more abundant, so do the names of the women who copied or owned in Byzantine manuscripts can also be counted as reflecting implicit them: six can be dated between the fourth and the twelfth centuries Byzantine attitudes towards learned women, this goes only part of the way in bridging the gap in the amount of information on learned women in the ancient vs. the Byzantine period. Two related questions 26 remain open: why do Byzantine women with an education seem to Ancient women poets and philosophers are discussed below; on ancient women physicians, see Fleming (2007); women alchemists, Letrouit (1995), no. 26.7: no.2.l.l: have authored little, or at any rate considerably less than their ancient no. 26.9; no. 3; no. 9. 27 counterparts?2s In addition, a cumulative comparison of known female Inscriptions are used by Haines-Eintzen (1998) on female scribes in the early (1997) Fleming (2007) for female physicians up to the intellectual activity in antiquity its counterpart in the Byzantine Christian period; Parker and with sixth century; Dronke (1984) and Plant (2004) use them to retrieve poems by women period seems to reveal not only a quantitative but also a qualitative inscribed formally or as graffrti on stone, though in such cases one needs to care- difference: The surviving written record allows us to detect women in fully distinguish between poems composed or commissioned by women, which is not always easy. Greek-speaking antiquity engaging in a number of different yet inter- 28 Seals, an important source for Byzantine prosopography, are not helpful in dis- related disciplines: poetry, philosophy (broadly conceived), alchemy, cerning women scribes or in other activities indicating literacy: they generally belonged to aristocratic women whom they identify with their noble titles or the names of the administrative offices held by their husbands; for examples, see Margarou (2000),26, 44, 46, 52, 54, 64, 66-68,73, etc. 2e 2a Chiliades l0 ed. Leone (1968) 306. 52-94;I read ¡rarpòv instead of prrpòv cx,rpo- Lampros (1903); perhaps the inspiration for this publication can also be placed ropévr1 in verse 59. within the context of the feminist activities spearheaded in Greece by Kalirroe Parren 2s Laiou (1985) 60: "The extant writings of 60 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 61 (among whom three are recorded only in narrative sources),3O twelve female scribal activity in the middle Byzantine and the Comnenian between the thirteenth and the fifteenth, while the remaining thirteen period other than Lampros', though scholarly remarks on female educa- in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.3l tion during these centuries are pertinent.34 Katerina Nikolaou recently Recently, K. Haines-Eitzen proposed that some of our earliest outlined that from the eighth until the beginning of the eleventh cen- Christian manuscripts may have been copied by women.32 As for tury the presence of women in the context of Byzantine educational later Byzantine scribal activity and manuscript ownership by women' institutions is hard to discern, or completely missing. This changes the best available treatment is by Alice-Mary Talbot, discussing the towards the end of the eleventh century, from which time onwards we Paleologan period, when the overall greater availability of manuscripts know of a number of well-educated women, a phenomenon that lasts yields more data.33 We remain without a systematic investigation of throughout the Comnenian period. Aristocratic women of any period had better chances to receive an education, while royal women of dif- ferent centuries were often (but not always) given one because of the exalted duties they were expected to perform and tlìe possibility that 30 No. 1, Saint Melania t Constantina, whose very existence Lampros doubted oukaina, is more evident they may be called upon to assist with governance.3s from the information recor her autograph signature This brief overview suggests a pattern in the availability of informa- on the Typiko ered at least si tion on educated women in Byzantium that is entirely consistent with the Acts of th the distribution of the preserved record on any aspect of Byzantine Philaretos the social and cultural life. True, the evidence collected by modern schol- year 800, must be Ma recipient of the manus ars on Byzantine female bibliophiles suggests that women produced Clearly, Lampros was and owned mostly biblical, liturgical, and hagiographical-therefore scribal activity before t "religious" rather than "secular"-manuscripts. Yet notable exceptions from earlier narrative that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are the earliest time for which enough include the famous sixth-century manuscript of Dioscorides now in archival documents survive to allow even an attempt to statistically measure female Vienna that was produced for |uliana Anicia;36 the collection of classical active in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; see Schreiner (1999) 37-38 and Weyl Carr (1985) 5-6. 3a References from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries to women in occupations that suggest female literacy and access to education are collected in Margarou (2002) and write, and if so what kind of texts, earlier than the thirteenth century. 163-65 and 217-lB (teacher = didaskøIos),215 (calligrapher), 223-26 and 235-36 3r This count is still generous, because among the thirty-one women that Lampros (physician and midwife), 257-58 (preparer of potions and amulets). However, almost discussed, he sometimes doubted the female authorship alleged by the sources. On all mentions of "teachers" occur in a monastic context and could simply indicate guid- no. 12, Smaragda, see Tselikas (2000) 355 (with photographic reproduction of the ance in matters of spirituality and conduct; as for medicine, midwifery, and knowledge manuscript). of herbs, drugs and magic, they could be imparted through practice instead of aca- 3'Z Haines-Eitzen (1998). To the Greek sources known to Lampros (the testimony demic training. Margarou (2002) 265-7 | differentiates the levels of education attained ofEusebius on c account ofa fifth-century by nuns depending on the social class to which they had been born and generally saint, Melania eek inscriptions from Asia agrees with the conclusions outlined in Nikolaou (2005). 35 Minor and Lat ing to female calligraphers Nikolaou (2005) 185-213. See also the remarks on female literacy in Laiou (1981) who could writ t surviving record of which 253-57. A well-known instance of advertising the education given to the daughters dates to the fourteenth century, indicating that the codex Alexandrinus, one of the of emperor Basil I (born an illiterate peasant) is their depiction holding books in earliest biblical codices in existence, was copied by St. Thecla. On St. Thecla and three a painting decorating the imperial palace [Anderson (2000) 727]; eùrcahed imperial more legendary female scribes (empress Theodora the restorer of the icons, Kassia and princesses also include the daughters of emperor Theophilos and Constantine VII's St. Matrona), see Casetti Brach (1975). daughter Agathe. Psellos, on the other hand, accused Constantine VIII and Basil II 33 Talbot (1933) 609-14, providing a catalogue ofPaleologan manuscripts that can ofneglecting the education ofConstantine VIII's daughters; for references to primary be associated with convents. To the women scribes of the Paleologan period known sources and further instances, see Herrin (1995) 77-78. 36 to Lampros, two more were added by later research: the nun Anna in the thirteenth On fuliana Anicia and the Dioscorides manuscript, see Brubaker (2002) and century and her close contemporary Eirene, the daughter of Theodore Hagiopetrites, Talbot (1997) 135-37; for a recent suggestion that parts ofthe manuscript preexisted Y 62 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED woMEN oF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 63 authors associated with Theodora Raoulaina in the second half of the So much about what women read; how about what they wrote? If thirteenth century;37 a further example could be the fifteenth-century we compare Greek antiquity with Byzantium or even Latin antiquity, female owner of a manuscript with two comedies by Aristophanes it seems that not only the names of female authors but also texts writ- who is mentioned together with her husband, though it is impossible ten by or attributed to them surwive in considerably greater numbers to ascertain whether co-owning the manuscript also meant that she from the ancient Greek world.al For example, it is possible to com- read it;3s beyond manuscript copying, in the realm of literary compo- pile an anthology quoting from the work of forty-six women authors sition, "secularly minded" is the translation into Greek of an Arabic writing in Greek between the seventh century BC and the early third or Persian work on geomancy commissioned to the monk Arsenios century AD.a2 In the current state of research, Byzantinists would be by the lady Theodora Doukaina, future wife of emperor Michael VIII hard pressed to create as extensive an anthology covering an equiva- Paleologos;3e it almost becomes possible to argue that the primacy of lent amount of time, between the fourth and the fifteenth century AD.a3 religious content is not a peculiarity of manuscripts connected with The only published attempt known to me, Kadel (1995), includes only women but consistent with the overall distribution of texts in the sur- seven women authors. This disparity can, at least partly, be explained viving Byzantine manuscripts, where the "religious" outnumbers the by the eagerness with which modern scholars in different fields have "secular."4o scrutinized the historic record. Such an effort was undertaken more intensively for Graeco-Roman antiquity, early Christianity and the Latin Middle Ages because not only are these fields more populated in Western academia than Byzantine studies, but their conclusions can more readily provide arguments in the context of contemporary politi- cal debates, since all three are broadly considered as ancestors to the modern "Western" world in a way that Byzantium, rightly or wrongly, commentary on Aristotle's P/rTsics (MS Mosq. Hist' Mus' 3649); see Fonkió (1974) I34 and Evangeiatou-Notara (1982183) 204. ]Her scholarly interests are also clear in the letters of men such as Maximos Planoudes and Nikephoros Choumnos addressed to her; for example, a letter by Cho at she had asked to borrow from him a manusãript of Aristotle's its commentaries by Alexandros the earlier comments in Talbot (1983) 612. This affects our understanding of the bal- of Aphrodisias. On her many co eferences to primary sources' see ance between her "religious" vs. "secular" interests. Nicol (1996) 4l-44. ar Ludwich (1895) 296 contrasted the abundance of material attributed to female authors in Greek with the paucity in Latin. a2 Plant (2004), anthologizing a total of fifty-frve female authors, seven of whom wrote in Latin and the rest in Greek; the last frve in Plant's catalogue (three of whom wrote in Latin) lived between the fourth and the sixth centuries and have been excluded from our count offifty because they could be reckoned as falling within the texts (nos. 28 and29). "Byzantine" period. The authors anthologized by Plant are many of those discussed in 3e Mavroudi (2002) 408-9. An outline of the intellectual interests documented in the earlier monograph by Mclntosh Snyder (1989). Dronke (1984) does the same for connection with women througho can be found in Talbot Iate antique and medieval literature in Latin. These pioneering efforts do not always (1997) 135-37; specifrcally for the (1983) 609-14' address limitations inherent in the source material. For example, Plant includes the a0 The reasonJ for this are mult ted simply to the "theo- reports of men on works by women that do not survive; Dronke (1984) 2l-26 collects from inscriptions poems with a female narrative voice without discussing the possibil- ity that these may have been commissioned to professional poets; on female poetry in epigraphic evidence, see also Kadel (1995) 44. a3 Kadel's goal is to include Christian writers from the frrst to the fifteenth century regardless of language; the work builds on the earlier research by Dronke (1984) and mostly includes women writing in Latin and Western European vernaculars, though it does make an effort to include Christian women from the churches of the East writing sin m tributed to the not only in Greek, but also Armenian (two examples). Kadel is so eager to extend the "at as longer viewed record as far and wide as possible that he includes four lives of female saints written as d on (1991) and in Syriac that he acknowledges as most probably written by men. -T- 64 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED woMEN oF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING REcoRD 65 is not.aa A closer look at the channels through which information on more names of poets including one woman, Thecla (ninth century)..t learned women in antiquity reached us reveals that they are consider- More recent research into Byzantine hymnography brought to light ably limited and fragile but have been greatly amplifred by systematic two additional female hymnographers, Theodosia (ninth century) scholarly efforts over centuries. The domain in which ancient female and Palaiologina (fourteenth century).ae This means that among 190 literary production survives most extensively is poetry, and modern Byzantine poets five are women (2.6Vo). Though these calculations are efforts to create a systematic corpus of female poetic production are based on non exhaustive data-especially since a sizeable chunk of in evidence at least as early as the sixteenth century.as The work of Byzantine poetic production remains unexplored-s0 they still indi- Sappho, the superstar of ancient poetesses, has been (and continues cate that the statistical discrepancy in the number of recorded women to be) painstakingly recovered from fragments quoted in later phil- authors in antiquity as compared with the Byzantine period is mini- ological works, anthologies and papyri. By comparison, the body of mal; and that, within this small margin, a more systematic effort to secular and religious poetry attributed to Kassia, Sappho's Byzantine "recover" women authors from unpublished (and even published) counterpart as far as fame is concerned, has not yet received a system- source material may yield statistically significant results even if it atic edition nor an extensive discussion of the problems it presents in does not spectacularly increase the number of women authors that we spite of some initial steps in this direction.a6 Some further comparisons know of. are illuminating: the electronic collection of Greek texts Thesaurus The best recorded Byzantine woman poet is Eudocia, who- Linguae Graecae in its present state includes the names of 411 ancient Tzetzes' comments notwithstanding-owed her education primar- poets (eighth century BC-fourth century AD), nine among whom are ily to her pagan philosopher father, Leontios of Athens, though she female (approximately 2o/o). Conversely, Hunger's History of the High- became a Christian (and an empress) by marrying Theodosios II in Style Secular Literature of the Byzantines (1978) reviews approximately 42l.st }{er close contemporary, Hypatia, who excelled not in poetry I20 Byzantine poets for an equivalent period (fourth- fifteenth century but Neoplatonic philosophy, was also taught by her father, the famous AD) including two women, empress Eudocia (early fifth century) and pagan philosopher Theon of Alexandria.s2 Since both men were pro- Kassia (ninth century)." Since this excludes religious poetry, a correc- fessional teachers, they may have educated their daughters not simply tive can be supplied by adding the authors listed in Wellesz' A History out of paternal love but also as a way to advertise their own ability to of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (196I), which yields seventy teach, especially in an era when their pagan professional credentials a8 We have subtracted the names of hymnographers that also appear as "secular" poets in Hunger (1978). ae (1982-33), , Catafrgiotou-Topping recovering the names of women hymnogra- phers from the catalogue in Follieri (1966) 251-306. s0 Hunger (1978) ends the chapter on poetry by stating that he will now stop enu- merating Byzantine poets though there are many more to name: most Byzantine authors also wrote poetry. sr Tzetzes in educating he to trace is paid professi nd editions Orion is not (1802); s2 On Eudocia, see Holum (1982) 112-46; on Hypatia, see Saffrey (2005). Father- ancient daughter teams are also known among professional scribes, such as Theodore ^p Hagiopetrites and his daughter Eirene (who also appears to have had her own inde- tic dis radition and the testimo- pendent clientele) in the late thirteenth century and in the sixteenth century Angelus n could on is Rochow (1967);for Vergicius whose daughter worked on the illustrations of the manuscripts copied by a the p the Poems attributed to her father; see Weyl Carr (1985) 6-7.The daughter of Ioannes Honorios fróm six- Kassia, see Lauxtermann (2003) 248-52. teenth-century Otranto helped him with copying; see Vogel and Gardthausen (1909) a7 Hunger (1978), = Greek trans. (1992) 2:479-598. 181-82, note 8. -Y 66 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED woMEN oF BYzANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING REcoRD 67 Grosseteste's interest in biblical apocrypha.sT Whether Constantina was actually clairvoyant or not, there seems to be no good reason to dismiss her very existence other than our own reluctance to accept that, though extraordinary, it was indeed possible for a young woman in thirteenth-century Athens to have been more knowledgeable than a Paris educated man, at least in some domains.ss Philosophy (broadly defined in its literal sense as "love of wisdom") is, after poetry, the field of intellectual endeavour in which ancient dramatic. Such an instance must be the thirteenth-century Athenian women are reported to have been most frequently active. Ancient maiden Constantina, whose reported ability to predict earthquakes anci women philosophers have attracted the attention of modern schol- sounds that of the ars since the seventeenth century.se Though Aristotle did not accord t Sosipa through the women a share in philosophy, Plato and his followers did and even ronicle e she is said included philosopher-queens among the rulers of the ideal state.60 As to have taught Master John of Bassingstoke, archdeacon of Leicester, a result, women are more likely to be visible in circles friendly to a man of grãat erudition and translator of several treatises from Greek Platonic philosophy. Even the information we have on Pythagorean into Latin who visited Athens during the first half of the thirteenth women, i.e. female followers of a philosophy earlier than Plato, is century.ss Matthew Paris knew John of Basingstoke personally and is available because the Neoplatonists after the frrst century BC and in explicit that his report is based on his friend's oral communications' particular Iamblichos (ca. 240-325 AD) collected, reinterpreted and yeì modern scholars are inclined to dismiss his account of Constantina disseminated much Pythagorean material.6t In his Lifu of Pythagoras, as literary frction.s6 True, his description of her predictive abilities can make modern scholars incredulous. since he died before finishing his s7 According to Matthew Paris Giles (1853) 2: 484] Grosseteste became aware autograph is unrevised and its overall nar- [Ed. manuscript, the existing of the Testament of the Twelye Patriarclrs through fohn of Bassingstoke; as a result, he rative of the history of England during his time contains repetitions, procured a manuscript from Greece (today MS Ff. 1.24 of the Cambridge University (minus contradictions, and a heartfelt defence of English politics vis-à-vis the library) and translated the text into Latin. The account of Matthew Paris the to fab- explicit mention of John of Basingstoke's name) is consistent with Robert Grosseteste's Italian papacy. Yet in spite preface to his translation in Grosseteste (1716). t8 ricate lies and the passage ojourn This is not to suggest that Constantina was a "regular" phenomenon for early at Robert thirteenth-century Athens; she may have been the product of the (unattested) Athe- accurately describes lea nian equivalent of the (well-attested) Constantinopolitan philosophical and literary salons (0écrpo) associated with the desire of literary patrons to assert themselves socially during the Comnenian period [Magdalino (1993) 335-56]; she may have met with reactions analogous to those towards the better recorded learned women of the modern period, such as the eighteenth-century Milanese Maria Gaetana Agnesi who appeared at her father's salon almost as a public attraction. Her multilingualism, phil- osophical and mathematical training, and mastery of typically masculine techniques of academic disputation became an instrument for her family's social advancement. See Mazzotti (2007) 17-21. 5e Mclntosh Snyder (1989) 99-l2l and Dorandi (1991); the earliest is Menagius (1690), listing sixty-flve ancient women philosophers and dedicated to the published classicist Madame Dacier, the wife and daughter of classical scholars. 60 On women in Platonic and Neo-platonic philosophy, see O'Meara (2003) 83-86. 6r Riedwig (2005) x and 124-28; Athanassiadi (2006) 166-69; the present paper adopts the term "Neoplatonist," invented by nineteenth-century scholars to designate the followers and interpreters of Platonic philosophy from Plotinus onwards, for rea- sons of simplicity, without wishing to enter the more recent scholarly discussions on 7 LEARNED wOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 69 68 MARIA MAVROUDI (ca.172-250 AD)'u'Diogenes Laertius (third century AD) dedicated his Iamblichos gives a list of male and female Pythagoreans that comprises Philosophers to an unnamed woman interested in Platonic two hundred and eighteen men and seventeen women, eight among Lives of the philosophy;68 and Eunapios of Sardis (b. 347 AD) was married to a whom are identified as wives, daughters, or sisters of the men men- kinswoman of his mentor Chrysanthios, a student of Iamblichos. These tioned in the same catalogue.62 frequently provide biographical information about their own Neoplatonists paid attention to women for practical reasons, too: authors teachers and colleagues, an intellectual circle connected also through the schools of Athens and Alexandria depended on dynastic succes- social intercourse. Since women cannot but sion, which was often made possible through marriage'63 We also marriage, friendship, and role establishing and sustaining such a network (in their know of women followers of cynicism, like Hipparchia of Maroneia, play a in capacity as marriageable material, hostesses of philosophical salons, and Epicurianism, such as Leontion, who may have been attracted to companions of great men) their names and accomplishments are these philosophical schools due to their lack of emphasis on the tradi- or the authors of the biographical works had a direct tional division of labor between men and women.6a In general, we are mentioned because connection with them. However, almost nothing much better informed about philosophically inclined women in the or indirect personal they may have written survives; we know of their teaching ancient than the Byzantine world, partly because information on them of what through gnomic sentences and riddles that read more like a is conveyed in collections of biographies conceived as intellectual his- mostly condensed written record of oral communications.6e This, perhaps tory, a genre that, after the sixth century AD was no longer cultivated already in antiquity or in later centuries, may have been regarded as a as such.ut Female figures seem to have played a role in the intellec- of literature expected of female authors, since examples of it are tual endeavors of writers who include women in their biographical genre attributed to Kassia in manuscripts dating from the thirteenth century collections: the Neoplatonist Plutarch of chaironeia (46-122 AD) onwards, whether she really cultivated it or not.70 was married to Timoxena, an author in her own right;66 Philostratos collections from the sixth century onwards was a protegé of "the most philosophical" empress |ulia Domna The lack of biographical means that, for the middle and late Byzantine period, information on female philosophical interests must be painstakingly sought in a wide variety of sources. The enterprise is complicated by at least two fac- tors: most Byzantine philosophical writings remain unpublished; and we know significantly more about Byzantine philosophy after the sec- ond half of the eleventh century than before.Tt In the current state of research, the examples are few and far in between. Predictably, most can be found from the late eleventh century onwards, a period also thought by modern scholars to have dramatically improved the access of women, especially aristocrats, to education.T2 From the end of the 67 Bowie (2010). 68 Lives of the Philosophers 3.47; on Diogenes Laertius, see Runia (20 l0). ó'q On thé aptitude oi ancient women philosophers for riddles, see Taylor (2003) t77. 70 On its Q003) 248 ff. The genre is also akin to the priate for Kassia as a nun' 7r The pr ) 5' " Outlin fly Laiou (19s1) 253, who rightly emphasizes the importance of social class in the improved access to education over thrèe generations of women in Michael Psellos' family' 70 MARIA MAVROUDI I,EARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 7I eleventh and into the twelfth century, we can discern the outlines of and On the Qualities of the Soul.78 At around the same time, emperor literary-philosophical salons maintained by a number of women with Manuel II wrote his Dialogue on Marriage, where, in good Platonic close ties to the imperial house: Maria of Alania, Eirene Doukaina, fashion, he cast himself and his mother Helena Kantakouzene Anna Komnena,T3 and the aforementioned sebastokrøtorlssø Eirene, (Chrysoloras' "new Aspasia") as interlocutors; the work may reflect sister-in-law of the emperor.Ta Information can be gleaned from con- discussions that had actually taken place between them decades before ventional historiography, epistolography, and the dedication of works it was written; it is only formally on matrimony and in fact offers a by men to women, either as flattery by ambitious literati to politically series of reflections on politics, the moral duties of a ruler, and the and socially influential women, or as the result of direct female patron- relation of an emperor to his subjects; it is also a portrayal of and a age. In the twelfth century, Eustratios of Nicaea, a member of Anna homage to Helena for her political acumen and advice, her virtue and Comnena's circle, dedicated his commentary to Book Six of the Ethica education.Te Intellectually, Helena was clearly able to appreciate the Nicomacheiø to an unnamed woman whom he addressed as princess dialogue's literary and philosophical merits, as evidenced by the letters (Baorl"íç), most probably Anna herself; he also dedicated a short essay addressed to her by the likes of Nikephoros Gregorass0 and Demetrios on meteorology to Maria of Alania.Ts In the thirteenth century, the Kydones, which also reveal that she was an author in her own right.st narrative of George Akropolites (Annales 39) informs us that Eirene, Although increased access of women to education is better attested empress of Nicaea and wife of |ohn III Doukas Vatatzes, though far from the end of the eleventh century onwards, the most evidence we from proficient in philosophy, had an avowed interest in and respect have about a similar phenomenon in Byzantium at an earlier period is for it. In the fourteenth century, Theodora Raoulaina's autograph copy concentrated around the middle decades of the ninth century (admit- of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics and the letters of tediy better documented than the earlier iconoclastic century, the her male correspondents such as Maximos Planoudes leave no doubt eighth, in our overall source material), when three of our four attested regarding her advanced philosophical readings.T6 Several decades later, female hymnographers lived.82 In spite of the numerous and profound Nikephoros Gregoras dedicated his commentary on Synesius' treatise differences in the economic and social conditions of the ninth, the on dreams to Eudocia Paleologina, a figure whom he describes in his twelfth, and the fourteenth centuries, there is at least one analogy: all Roman History 8.3.s as famous for her beauty and intellect, a vora- cious reader and auditor of teaching by others, likened by her con- temporaries Hypatia and Theano the Pythagorean.TT the to Towards 7s llepì 73 Brief discussion and earlier bibliography in Reinsch (2000) 87; Nardi (2002) 56-58; see also Papaioannou in this volume. 7a On her position as literary patroness relative to other such patronage in the twelfth century, see Magdalino (1993) 344; for a cumulative portrait with references to earlier literature, see fefreys and )efreys (2009) xxiv-xxix. 7s Cacouros (1989) 382-83. Cacouros' identifrcation of Anna is uncertain because the term Booûìç is occasionally used for a Roman imperial princess but more fre- quently applies to an empress; see Liddell and Scott (1996) and Sophocles (1888) s.v. fohn, to marry and have successors. poorÀíç. to Leone (1983), Letters 42 and I58. 76 See above, note 33. sr She wrote victory orations Kantakouzenos, that do not 77 On the re-dedication to Eudocia of Gregoras' commentary on Synesios, see Piet- survive; on her correspondence ou (1991) 40. rosanti (1999) xxvi-xvii. 82 This was also noticed by K 192) 400-401. -Y- 72 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 73 three centuries were, each for different reasons, periods of important the case in the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries.ss We hear of a social and ideological change. The fourteenth century brought, in noble woman of the senatorial class who "had been left a widow with addition to a series of civil wars, deep ideological divisions on account two daughters along with much wealth and a conspicuous lifestyle" of the Arsenite schism, Hesychasm, and the imperial policies regard- and in the 820s was inducted with her entire household into monas- ing union with the church of Rome, in which women played a pro- tic life by the iconophile St. Symeon of Lesbos.se Her older daughter, nounced role.83 Their intervention was encouraged by the proponents Hypatia, had showed an earlier predilection for monastic life by her and despised by the enemies of the causes they championed.sa Earlier, determination to devote herself "to divine studies and also to poetry the twelfth century was also a period of transition because the rul- and grammar and the metrical works of the divine fathers."e0 She was ing class of the empire was being restructured; political divisions were of the same age and social class as the poet Kassia, which leads to the created in each generation of imperial relatives as they antagonized hypothesis that the study of poetry and hymnography may have been a each other for power. Within this context, aristocratic women could standard feature of female aristocratic education around the beginning exercise remarkable authority in the name of their clan and broad- of the ninth century-this would help explain the concentration of cast its claims to power through becoming patrons of an extensive women hymnographers in that generation. There is further evidence literary production by male authors, though the most famous case of of female financial independence around the same time, though it is such broadcasting is Anna Comnena, a woman writing with her own impossible to know to which degree it may have been combined with pen,8s This social transition gave aristocratic women-perhaps even access to education and a predilection for intellectual endeavors. The the female kin of lesser magnates-86 a new public role and offered well known story of the ship owned by Theodora, wife of emperor opportunities to access education and literary culture that would have Theophilos (829-42), which he burnt, claiming outrage that his wife been unavailable under different circumstances.sT The ninth century had turned him from emperor into a trading ship owner (voór<Àr1poç), can also be viewed as a period of transition due to the iconoclastic suggests substantial financial activity by the wife unbeknownst to the controversy. In addition, socially prominent women during this time husband and considerable independence of mind and action.el The seem to have enjoyed considerable financial independence, as was also destruction of his wife's ship notwithstanding, Theophilos restored jus- tice to a widowed woman who had lost her own ship and its cargo to 83 Talbot (1983) 614-17 chronicles the active involvement of women, including lit- erary patronesses like Theodora Raoulaina and Eirene-Eulogia Choumnaina, to these disputes. 8a It would be interesting for a future study to examine in which terms the negative criticism is cast. An example is Philotheos Kokkinos who describes a series of Gregory 88 Laiou (I98I) 242-43 and Laiou (i985) document the frnancial resources available Palamas' healing miracles involving women. As a result, one of them became a Palam- to women in the Comnenian and Paleologan period. ite after having belonged to the opposition, described in the following words (PG l5l, 8e The entire story is related in Abrahamse and Domingo-Forasté (1998) 193-96; col.642): "Those superfrcial and empty-headed women, whom Constantinople breeds see also Alexakis in this volume. e0 in large numbers, who add to their supposed nobility vacuousness and a schismatic "...tcrîç 0eíarç peÀétorç, ðtt ôà norrltrrfl rcx,ì ^¡po¡rponrcfl rccì toîç tôv Oeíarv predilection, and who . . . have the ambition of building around them a following, and notÉpr,rv ðp¡rétporç novílpcxorv óyvor oötì1v éærôrôóvcrr," translation by Abrahamse and acquiring fame and an unbecoming name." Translation by Laiou (1985) 97 . Kokkinos Domingo-Forasté (1998) 193. Discussion of her education ibid., 193-94. must have been referring to anti-Palamites like the literary minded Eirene-Eulogia et The story can be found in three Byzantine sources (the Continuator of Theo- Choumnaina and Eirene, wife of John Kantakouzenos; see Laiou ( 1981) 251 andnote 92. phanes, Genesios, and Zonaras); for references and a discussion, see Laiou (2002) I' Magdalino (2000). 729 and Dagron (2002) 416. Its version by the Continuator of Theophanes suggests 86 Magdalino (1993) 345; see also above, note 31. that the sight of the magnifrcent ship must have caused Theophilos to fear that its 87 Indeed, Kazhdan and Wharton (1985) 99-102 suggested that the increased owner's wealth may pose a threat to imperial authority [on a preemptive move by appearance of imperial women in Byzantine historiography of the eleventh and Theophilos to avoid conspiracies, see Treadgold (1988) 2721: Theophilos is said to twelfth centuries is due to the "aristocratization" of Komnenian society and politics. have been relieved upon hearing that the ship belonged to his own wife (róre pèv More recently, Neville (2010) 72 attributed this phenomenon to an "increased use of êrp¡ou1áocrr Àéletcrr). The complaint that Theodora's commercial activities were an Classical Roman models by Byzantine historians." Such an explanation does account insult to his own imperial dignify must have served him more as an excuse to punish for the well-attested female literary patronage and implies that literary tastes were the empress for her independence than an opportunity to apply his ideas regarding either disconnected from or generated social trends, instead of reflecting them. the commercial activities of aristocrats. T 74 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED wOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECoRD 75 I the rapacity of the imperial Praepositus Nikephoros (Patria 3.28).e2In opportunity to become more vocal in public, therefore potentially the 850s Danielis, a fabulously wealthy widow from the Peloponnese, increases their participation in intellectual life and literary produc- played an important role in the career of Basil I.e3 The social lever- tion. For many women, Protestantism meant such an invitation to age of wealthy women could be particularly consequential if they participate, which included the right to publicly preach and interpret embraced causes under dispute. It is not surprising that Theodore of the scripture; Calvin, Pierre Viret, and others, responded by formally Stoudios (in the manner of the early Church Fathers) discouraged his forbidding women to do so.e8 Byzantine iconophile women fared female correspondents from marrying: this would have jeopardized much the same: Theodore of Stoudios' letters portray women who their independence and possibly ended their support for the icons, had shown considerable independence and endurance by risking their since men connected with the imperial administration would have lives or being subjectecl to flogging, imprisonment, and banishment, : been obliged to pay at least lip service to iconoclast orthodoxy.ea Alice- yet his ideal feminine qualities are conservative.ee Their struggle on Mary Talbot and Alexander Kazhdan have remarked on the extraordi- behalf of the icons briefly gave women a public voice as hymnogra- i rl nary number of women addressees of letters by Theodore of Stoudios phers included in formal church rites. Yet after the end of iconoclasm il (759-826) can be only the epistolography of the early they returned to a more restricted social condition, included the iì that paralleled in which I Christian period, a time when women became soldiers to the causes removal of their compositions from the liturgy, as already observed by of Christianity and its doctrinal development.es Yet forty-one women Alice-Mary Talbot and Alexander Kazhdan.100 correspondents do not make him a feminist, only a pragmatist. fean An additional factor may have contributed to the concentration Gouillard argued that Theodore was most interested, among the many of women hymnographers in the ninth century: as a result of icono- women to whom he wrote, in those that could further the cause of clasm, this is a period of changing poetic and musical tastes, therefore iconophile orthodoxy and its elite corps, the Stoudites.e6 We know open to imports from the cultural periphery of Byzantium, such as from other moments in history such as the European Reformation Palestinel0l and -why not?-the compositions of women. The novelty or-within the "feminist" twentieth century-the Cuban revolution of iconophile ninth-century chant by Theodore of Stoudios was such and the first Palestinian Intifada, that whenever there is a political and that it elicited ridicule in Byzantine Sicily.t02 Women hymnographers social struggle women are invited to join the army of partisans because seem to be embracing novelty, too: Diane Touliatos has pointed out every soldier is needed and every soul counts. As a result, their social that Kassia's most famous composition, her Troparion on The Fallen importance and independence increase-for a brief moment. They Woman, has some exceptional musical features when compared with are then pushed back to the social niche they occupied before the other examples of Mode IV Plagal, in which it is written.ro3 In compos- struggle begun, sometimes even before its final triumph.eT The greater ing a canon on Hosios Ioannikios the Great (754-846) soon after his social consequence of women as partisans of a cause gives them an death, Theodosia was definitely tackling a theme outside established tradition.toa The Virgin, the topic of Thecla's only surviving hymn, is much more conventional, but her treatment of it is unusual in voicing e2 Preger (1907) 223-24. The praeposifus Nikephoros was punished with burning an openly and exclusively female perspective throughout.l0s at the stake; the widow regained the value of her lost property and a portion of his confrscated estate. er Anagnostakes (1989) suggested that Danielis is a literary frction created for propagandist purposes by the author of the Life of Basil, a hypothesis rejected by Sevðenko (1992) I93' even if she did not exist, creating her must have been based on e8 See, for example, Timmermans (1993) 28 tr. the real existence of wealthy independent women in ninth- and tenth-century society. " Gouillard (1982). On Danielis, see Winkelmann and Lilie (1999) 392, no. 1275. '00 Kazhdan and Talbot (1991192) 404 and 401. ea Kazhdan and Talbot (1991192) 399. r01 Lauxtermann (2003) 137-38; Cicolella (2000) xxvi tr. es Kazhdan and Talbot (1991192) 399. ro2 Taft (1999) 534. e6 Gouillard (1982). r03 Touliatos (1984) 77, accepting this troparion as genuine. e7 On the eforts to limit the greater freedom of women generated by the Intifada roa Catafugiotou-Topping (1982183) 102-04. while it was taking place, see Hammami (1990) and Abdo (1991). r0s Catafrgiotou-Topping (1982/83) 105. 76 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED woMEN oF BYzANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECoRD 77 There is promise that a more systematic investigation of the taken by an author during his or her lifetime. Such steps include the Byzantine sources, both published and unpublished, will help modern publication or at least organization of their own body of work and the scholarship take stock of more literary products by women than we cultivation of disciples who would continue to study and disseminate are currently aware of. For example, to the meager corpus of female it beyond the lifetime of its author. For example, the numerous texts poetry from Byzantium one must add the two dodecasyllabic poems written by or attributed to Psellos would not have been as many with- by Theodora Raoulaina found in her autograph copies of Simplikios out his career in education, which created a circle of students (and and Aelios Aristeides celebrating her scribal work and the nobility of later their students) who kept copying and citing his work throughout her blood.t06 This also nuances her profile as author, since her only the twelfth century. The prolific literary output of Tzetzes (condemned generally known literary composition is her lengthy hagiographic by modern scholars as not of very high caliber) survives because he account of the ninth-century saints Theodore and 'Iheophanes;r07 it took pains to organize, edit, publish it, and clearly mark it with his also extends to women what Herbert Hunger observed regarding men: name, as is natural for a professional seeking to advertise himself and most Byzantines who ever wrote anything also tried their hand at make a living out of his literary craft.In contrast, the literary games poetry.r08 There is firm evidence that Byzantine women wrote more of a dilettante, perhaps like Tzetzes' woman schedographer, made for and in more genres than what we now possess. For example, we no amusement and not out of professional ambition, would generally be longer have empress Eudocia's entire poetic production,rOe nor the regarded by herself and her circle as ephemera, likely to disappear for panegyrics for emperor John Kantakouzenos written by his daugh- lack of motivation to preserve them (and her name) for the sake of ter Helena, nor Palaiologina's hymns that Georgios Sphrantzes stated immediate or long-term posterity.112 Yet we have vestiges of female he had read.110 Further, it is clear that a number of letters written to literary production due to the chance survival of such ephemera the women by Theodore of Stoudios are responses.rrl More such instances subsequent care for which can clearly be linked with members of the can certainlybe uncovered after a systematic search for letters addressed author's close personal circle: the only letters by a Byzantine woman to female correspondents among the voluminous epistolographic cor- known to suryive, those by Eirene-Eulogia Choumnaina, are part of pora of Byzantine men. a sequence of letters copied on the last thirty folia of a miscellany Two things stand out in our examination of the literature produced with medical, astrological, philosophical and patristic texts written by by women, both ancient and Byzantine. First, already in antiquity, a number of different fourteenth- and fifteenth-century hands.1r3 The female literary output is better recorded for genres in which perfor- sequence begins with four letters by a known protégé of hers, Gregory mance (poetry) or oral transmission of learning (philosophy, alchetny, Akindynos, follorved by one addressed to fohn Kyparissiotesrra and a medicine) is paramount, although the only reason we are aware of it chronologically arranged exchange between herself (a total of eight let- is because it was eventually committed to writing. Second, both in the ters) and an unnamed male figure,1ls to whom she turned for spiritual ancient and the Byzantine period, the preservation of texts, whether by guidance (fourteen letters). His literary style, grammar and spelling men or women, frequently depends not only on their intrinsic quality and usefulness for subsequent generations ofreaders, but also on steps rr2 Compare the accidental survival of the poems by one of the most famous women poets in English, Emily Dickinson: they were meant as private musings and were written on forty notebooks and loose leaves of paper. They were found locked in 106 Quoted in full by Evangelatou-NoÍara (1982183) 204. a chest after her death in 1886 by her sister Lavinia and were published only because of r07 On this Vita, see Talbot (1983) 606 and 6ll. Lavinia's determination. Even so, a systematic and complete edition did not material- '08 Hunger (1978) = Greek translation (1992) 2:598. ize until 1955, after Emily's literary reputation was firmly established. tOe A biblical cento and the Martyrdom of St Cyprian survive; her verses on the '13 Detailed description ofthe contents in Zuretti (1932) ll3-20. lra Roman victories of 427 and 422 over Persia and encomium of Antioch do not; her Hero (1986) 22. Like Akindynos, fohn Klparissiotes and Choumnaina we¡e entire literary production seems to have been cast in Homeric hexameters; see Hunger anti-palamist. (1978) = Greek translation (1992) 2: 514. Irs Possibly Ignations, a hesychast and correspondent of Barlaam; he disagreed Ìr0 Catafigiotou-Topping (19821 83) 1 10-1 1. with Palamas affer 1341, which places him and Choumnaina on the same side of the "' Kazhdan and Talbot (1991192) 399. Palamite controversy; see Meyendorf's introduction in Hero (1986) 1S. 7 78 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED wOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECoRD 79 meet the expectations of Byzantine epistolography as a rhetorical legal changes regarding the institution of marriage in the late ninth "aristocratization" genre, while hers do not. This means that they were collected not for and tenth centuries,rre or the of society in the their belletristic but their personal value. Though she most likely did Comnenian period mentioned above) impacted women's lives in a not copy these folia, they must have belonged to her or a member number of distinct historical moments. This effort cannot continue of her immediate circle.rl6 A similar situation led to our knowledge without reflecting on the causes and patterns of preservation in our of Palaiologina's fourteenth-century canons that two generations later primary source material. Sphrantzes reports to have read (ctvéyvroocr), not heard; though he where he accessed her writings, he does mention that does not explain RnppRnNcns palaiologina bequeathed all her possessions (evidently including her personal papers) to his godmother, who later ended up at a nunnery in Primary Sources Constantinople joined by his mother's sisters. According to Sphrantzes, Abrahamse, D. and D. Domingo-Forasté. 1998. "Life of Sts. David, Symeon, and Thessaloniki, Palaiologina, a nun at the nunnery of St. Theodora of George of Lesbos." In Byzantine defenders of images. Eight saints' Iives in English composed canons honoring "St. Demetrios and St. Theodora and translation, 143-242. Washington, DC. other saints"; her choice of subjects, focusing on fi.gures revered in Bekker, I., ed. 1838. Georgius Phrantzes, Ioannes Cananus, Ioannes Anagnostes. Bonn. Casetti Brach, C. 1975. "Donne copiste nella leggenda di Bisanzio." Orientalia her nunnery and its surrounding city, suggests that her compositions Christiøna Periodica 4I 479-89. were expressions of private devotion without aspiration or intention to Diels, H. and W. Kranz, ed. 195111966. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratik¿r, Vol. 1. 6th ed. Repr. Berlin. reach an audience wider than her own spiritual community, as befits Giles, J. 4., trans. 1853. Matthew Paris's english history from the year 1235 to 1273. a nun's humility. As a result, her writings would likely not have sur- 2 vols. London. vived for Sphrantzes to read and tell us about without his godmother's Grecu, V., ed,. 1966. Georgios Sphrantzes. Memorii 1401-1477. Scriptores Byzantini 5. Bucharest. Palaiologina, which must have attachment to the spiritual legacy of the Green, M., ed., trans. 2002. The Trotula: An english trønslation of the medieval com- been the reason for her to preserve them when fleeing Thessaloniki pendium of women's medicine. Philadelphia. after the Ottoman occupation of 1387 to become a refugee in Lesbos Grosseteste, R. f716. The testament ofthe twelue patriarchs, the sons oflacob. Translated out of the Greek into Latin, by Robert Grostheød [i.e., Grosseteste], sometime Bishop first and Constantinople later.tl7 Palaiologina may be an exceptional of Lincoln; and out of hß copy into French and Dutch by others, 6 now Englished; but not unique case; given how many nunneries there were through- To the truth whereof, an ancient Greek copy written on parchment, is kept in the out the Byzantine centuries, there must have existed a whole body of University Library of Cambridge. Charlestown. [N.8.: this is one of several reprints that appeared between the lTth and the 19th centuries]. hymnography by women that even then few would have known much Halkin, F- ed. l9Sl. "Panégyrique de Marie l'Égyptienne." AB 99: 19-44. about-we will never know much, either. Hero, 4., ed. 1986. A woman's quest for spiritual guidance. The correspondence of prin- cess Palaiologina. Brookline, MA. have the social condition of females in Irene Eulogia Choumnaina The little evidence we on Ieraci Bio, A. M. ed. 1996. Pøolo di Nicea, Manuale medico. Hellenica et byzantina Byzantium, including literacy and access to education, is geographi- neapolitana 16. Naples. cally and chronologically so scattered that it yields no continuous Klein, U. (post L. Deubner), ed. 193711975. Iamblichi de vita Pythagorica liber. Repr. Leipzig. years has cautiously out- narrative. Yet scholarship in the last twenty Lawson, S., trans. 1985. Christine de Písan, The treøsure of the city of ladies or the book lined how political and ideological transformations (the introduction of the three virtues. London. of Christian ideology to state legislation in the late antique period,rrs Leone, P. L. M., ed. 1983. Nicephori Gregorae epistulae. Matino. Menagius, A. 1690. Historia mulierum philosopharum. Lyon. Pietrosanti, P., ed. 1999. Nicephori Gregorae Explicatio in librum Synesii "De insom- niis"; scholia cum glossis. Introduzione, testo critico e appendici. Bari. Preger, Th. 190711989. Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum. Leipzig. i and Sphrantzes' godmother Thomaïs (both aris- toc licitlv"laiologina with easier access to education) are narrated in Grecu (19 corräsponding to Bekker (1838) Chronicle 2.5,139-44; see also Catafl'giotou-Topping (1982-83) I l0-l 1. r'' r18 Beaucamp (1990-92). Laiou (1989). 80 MARIA MAVROUDI LEARNED WOMEN OF BYZANTIUM AND THE SURVIVING RECORD 81 Sakkelion, I., ed. 1888. "Mor0oíor toô Kcvtorou(4voô, ,A'óyor ôóo. 'Er lerpolpá Hunger, H. 1978, Die profane L-iteratur der Byzanti.ner Handbuch Mazzotli, M. 2007. The world of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, mathematician of God. dei Altertumswissen inisðhes Handbuch. Munich. (= Greek transl. Baltimore. 1987-94, Bo(avt:ì¡ Lóyru rooprcì¡ ypappaæía rîtv Bo(uvrtvîtv' Mclntosh Snyder, J. 1989. The woman and the lyre: Women writers in classical Greece 3 vols. Athens.) and Rome. Carbondale and Edwardsville. Ierodiakonou, K., ed.2002. Byzantine philosophy and its ancient sources. oxford. Mcleod, G. 1991. Virtue ønd venom. Ann Arbor. epistulae. corpus christianorum, series Mentzu-Meimare, K. 1982. "'H ncrpouoío, tfrç yovoíruç orìç èl"l"r1vrràç énrypo Sc Schreiberin 36: 35-45. Se stantine." In TENTH 11 October, WOMEN IN BYZANTINE HISTORY IN THE (e3- l06). AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES: SOME THEORETICAL 1991. Byzantium and the Sløvs. Cambridge, MA and Napoli. CONSIDERATIONS -. 1992.'íRe-reading Constantine Porphyrogenitus." In Byzantine diplomacy. Ed. -. f. Shepard and S. FrankÌin, 167-98. Aldershot. Sophoclås, E. A. 1888. Greek lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods. New York Stamatina McGrath and Leipzig. Taft, R. tissì "Comparative liturgy fifty years afte . 1948): A l0). reply to recent critics." Worship 7316:521-40. Re Understanding the role of gender in Byzantine society is a task that jg61. Divine liturgies-Himan problems in Syria and of scholars systematically since the 1980's. A -. Pølestine. Aldershot. has drawn the attention Tatbot, A.-M. 1983. "Blues al life in the convents of late number of different methodological approaches have been employed In Sevðenko- by-his colleagues and Byzantium." Okeanos. the interpretation of women in literary, historical, hagiographical siudents. Ed. C. Mango Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7' in Cambridge, MA. Repr. in Talbot 2001 (essay 18). and theological texts, as well as, in art and music.r These most valu- nWomen." l9g7. 1n The Byzantines, ed. G. Cavallo, ll7-I43. Chicago, IL, Repr' able contributions have advanced our concept of women and most -. importantly gender in Byzantium. Teasing out what authors intended when they included women in their stories helps us reveal not only the writer's philosophical and political agenda but also more deep rooted concepts of social structure, authority and patriarchy''z Elizabeth Clark's notion that literary, philosophical, and theoretical critique of premodern texts is a fruitful avenue of study and that 'the social logic of the text' is one of the tools that aids researchers in examining the literary produ work for this paper.3 I prop th a focus on der Rena revealing the the eleventh Wellesz, E. music and hymnography. Oxford, century specifically in the realm of women's involvement in public monasticism in Byzantium: Introduction Weyl Carr, and most revealing at times of from an Forschungen 9: 1-15. life. This type of examination of texts is Wilson, N. 1983. Scholars of Byzantium. Baltimore, MD' societal change when the strain of the conflict between one ideology der mittel-byzantinischen Zeit, Winkelmann, F. and R.-J. Lilie. tggS. Prosopographie and another reveals the weak points in a society's ideology' Erste Abteilung (641-867). Berlin and New York. eleventh century.4 Zwierlein-Dieht, p.. ZOOZ. Antike Gemmen und ihr Nachleben. Berlin & New York. In Byzantium, one such time of change was the Among the historians of this time fohn Skylitzes has received par- ticular attention for his connection with the ruling dynasty, his legal expertise, moralizing tendencies and negative attitudes toward women.s I Herrin (19S3) 167-89; Garland (1988); Talbot (2001); Laiou (1981/1992a); Garland (2006); James (1997); Iames (2009) and Peltomaa (2005) for the most recent overviews of gender studies in Byzantium. 'z Clark (2004) 156-85. 3 Clark (2004) 166-67; James (1997) ix-xxi. a Kazhdan and Epstein (1990); Harvey (1989); Kazhdan and Franklin (1984); Laiou and Simon (1994). s Laiou (1992b); Holmes (2005) 66ff.; Strugnell (2006); Sklavos (2006)'